116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
My Biz: Whirlybirds’ drones take aerial photos, video
Longtime Collins manager started his business in 2018
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After a career that included working on some of the most advanced helicopters in the U.S. military, James Perkins downsized.
“That’s what my license is, is a remote pilot for UAVs,” Perkins said one recent morning.
Perkins, 77, bought his first Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, usually referred to as a drone, in 2017, four years after retiring with Rockwell Collins. After 40 years with the company, now Collins Aerospace, he was its business development manager for rotorcraft and government systems.
“We put in the glass cockpits for U.S. Army Special Operations Command,” he said. “We ended up with a number of other customers. We worked with the Coast Guard.”
His work naturally led Perkins to follow the rapid development of civilian UAVs. By the early 2000s, miniaturization and refinements to operating software made remotely piloted aircraft a cheaper, more flexible platform for aerial photography and survey work.
Perkins launched Whirlybirds in 2018 after earning his remote pilot’s license from the Federal Aviation Administration. An FAA license is required to fly a drone weighing 250 grams (0.55 pounds) or more.
“They’re pretty small, but those can be flown without a registration or without a license,” he said, taking his smallest drone from its shoebox-sized case. “This will take 4K video. It’s quite stable if it isn’t too windy. It has a 12-megapixel still camera, and it will take bracketed photos.
“You take three or five different exposures, and you can blend them together so you can end up with some acceptably good photos and pretty good video.”
Aerial views
Much of his Whirlybirds’ commissions come from marketing agencies seeking dramatic, sweeping aerial views of a client’s property without the expense of a helicopter and crew.
But some customers’ needs are more down to earth, like the company building a large manufacturing plant in southwest Cedar Rapids who wants to check on its progress. Perkins returns to the job site periodically, flying the same path, which is stored in the drone’s memory.
“The plant is so big I have the aircraft fly a fixed repeating altitude a little under 200 feet,” he said. “It will take a nice 4K video. They get the same look each time.”
Restrictions
Perkins’ commercial license, renewed every two years, allows him to sell his photography and video. He carries the required insurance. All drones used for commercial purposes must be registered, regardless of weight.
FAA rules allow drones to be flown over private property at a maximum altitude of 400 feet within the pilot’s visual line of sight. Drone flights are restricted around airports. If a drone strays into restricted airspace near an airport, the FAA warns the pilot, then lands the drone within 90 seconds.
“Downtown, the only real restriction (is) flying over people and loitering over people, which you can’t do, or even loitering over cars,” Perkins said, showing a dramatic clip of Cedar Rapids’ nighttime skyline. “You can fly over a road, but you’ve got to keep going. You can’t sit there, that’s too dangerous.
“The only other restriction downtown is the jail. They don’t want you flying over the jail.”
Even the most basic recreational drones — the sub-250-gram models that sell for under $1,000 — are equipped with sensors to prevent collisions with trees, buildings or other aircraft. They also can find their way back to their launch point without the pilot’s input.
“They’re smart enough to come back, pretty closely,” Perkins said.
Challenges
Perkins charges $150 for an aerial photo print of a home, farm, or business. High-resolution images and video for real estate agents or similar uses are about the same price, with extra charges for mapping and video editing.
“You can also put prop guards around these and fly them indoors,” he said. “Ryan Construction had an Amazon fulfillment center in Cedar Falls, a huge building, and they wanted photos inside. You can use it for things like that.”
While Perkins mastered the art of flying the miniature machines, each assignment brings a new challenge.
“The drone flying and positioning of the aircraft for the photos has not been so difficult,” he said. “But seeing or creating the shot in my mind, framing it, and the post-processing and editing to make it a good photograph, I'm still working on.”
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